


Small Destiny

by myth_taken



Series: Can't Believe It's Not Canon [5]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 16:55:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8852893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myth_taken/pseuds/myth_taken
Summary: Even demons, she reasoned, needed an education, especially when those demons weren’t even dangerous for another year.Tara runs away from her family and winds up at UC Sunnydale. Tara's life before she ever showed up onscreen.





	

Tara had spent weeks on her applications. She had applied as a spring semester transfer student to eight different schools on the west coast, hoping that somehow, she would be good enough for at least one of them.  

Every day, Tara walked home to find the mailbox devoid of anything bearing her name, but she kept on checking. She had to check herself, before her father got home from work, because otherwise he would know what she was up to, and she wasn’t going to risk that. Even demons, she reasoned, needed an education, especially when those demons weren’t even  dangerous for another year.

She had gotten a scholarship from a fund for gay and lesbian students who were trying to escape abusive homes; she had gotten a job from a local bookshop. Between the two, she knew she could pay for at least a semester of college, and then she could get a summer job, and pay for the next year. 

Every night, she prayed for luck; not to the Christian God that her father wanted her to worship, but to her own conception of the Goddess that she and her mother had loved. She didn’t pray to influence the decisions of admissions committees. She had decided that was unethical. Instead, she prayed to be good enough. She prayed that her achievements, small as they were, and her test scores, which were actually pretty good, would be enough to get her away from her family.

Whether it was because of the prayers or the test scores, Tara soon got her answer: four of the eight schools had accepted her. She only had to choose which one.

She burned her rejection letters and hid her acceptance packets deep in the closet. The irony of the closet was not lost on her, but it was truly where she hid everything; the few herbs and candles that she had remaining, drafts of essays she had worked hard on, the extra cash that she was going to use to buy her way west.

When she was absolutely sure that no one was home, though, she spread out the information from each college on her bed, trying to decide which one she could go to. Finally, she chose UC Sunnydale, noticing that it had the most interesting art program and the lowest price. 

Finally, she was ready. She pushed a few outfits deep into her old backpack from high school, dropping a few books and her meager supply of candles and herbs on top. Looking around the drab room for something else, she carefully lifted the picture of her mother off her nightstand, and she promised herself that her next room would be more obviously  _ hers _ . 

It was time.

She went to class the next day as normal. It was the last day before the winter break, and Tara needed her transcript to mark a complete semester so that UC Sunnydale might still want her. Still, she couldn’t focus all day. She was bouncing in her seat with butterflies in her stomach as she contemplated what she was going to do.

Finally, she managed to get herself to the bus station. She bought her ticket for a Greyhound to Sunnydale, and, finally, she settled herself into a soft bus seat.

A day into the journey, as Tara was idly watching the trees go past, it sunk in. She had done it. This was the boldest move of Tara’s entire life, and she had made it happen. She hadn’t even needed magic to do it.

When Tara finally arrived in Sunnydale at dusk, she was immediately overwhelmed. Her stutter came out in full force as she asked the person at the station ticket booth for the quickest way to the cheapest place to stay, and she had been astonished with the reaction-- “It’s best you stay here until morning. Sunnydale’s a dangerous place at night.”

Tara slept on a bus station bench that night, but not before doing a dozen protection spells. Sunnydale was a dangerous place, but Tara was a dangerous person. Demon. Whatever.

It was far easier the next day to get directions to a cheap motel. It wasn’t far to walk; as Tara wandered through the town, she got the impression that nowhere was far to walk in Sunnydale. The motel itself was run-down and shabby, but Tara just needed a place to stay until the university would let her into the dorm, and this was as good a place as any.

After she had dropped her backpack at the hotel, she decided to walk back to town. She didn’t know where she was going, but she relished the warm air; in Indiana, it had been snowy and cold, and Tara had worn her winter coat for the entirety of the bus ride due to a truly ridiculous level of air conditioning. Now, Tara let herself wander, enjoying freedom for the first time.

As she walked into town, a playful sign caught her eye.  _ The Magic Box. _ Tara approached the store. She hadn’t known that magic was store-worthy. Even the silliest fake tricks were to be kept tightly under wraps in the Maclay household. She approached the door slowly, jumping when the bells above the door rang. She could immediately smell new wax and old books, and she realized that coming to Sunnydale must have been, in some small way, her destiny.

She spent her days wandering through the town, shopping for new (cheap) clothes to replace the wardrobe she had left behind. She found some school supplies, too, and even a couple of candy canes as it became closer and closer to Christmas. She couldn’t afford anything in the magic shop, but she stopped in fairly regularly anyway, making mental lists of what she would buy if she could.

She celebrated Christmas alone, lighting a single candle in memory of her mother. When it snowed on Christmas day, Tara thought of it like a symbol: the first snow she would see as a free woman. 

Finally, school started. No one, not even her roommate, talked to Tara; they all knew each other already. Tara was used to it; she was too shy to talk to people most of the time, anyway. But she was learning, and she was free to do as she pleased, and she was finally able to say that she wasn’t afraid all day anymore. She laid awake at night, sure, afraid that her dad would find out where she had gone, but during the day, she was able to forget about most of her troubles.

When the school year was over, she went back to the motel and got a job at a local art gallery, selling sculptures and paintings and the like to people who had far more money than Tara ever would. The closest she came was making a sculpture out of old hangers that she had found next to the trash at the motel, and she didn’t dare show that to anyone. Art was dangerous for a Maclay. Even a creative thought could send her into a fervor, and that could unleash her true demonic nature far too early. 

At the end of the summer, she had to give up her job. School was starting, and Tara wanted to focus on studying. The gallery hadn’t been lucrative, but it had been enough, and Tara had never lived on much, so it wasn’t hard to continue not living on much. Plus, she still had her scholarship, and the school gave her financial aid in addition to that. 

This year, she had a new goal, in addition to learning: she wanted to make friends. She knew there was some sort of witch group on campus, and so she scoured the walls of flyers and posters until she found what she was looking for:  _ SUNNYDALE WICCA COLLECTIVE _ . 

The first meeting was terrifying. It was run by a senior, and the group’s members all seemed to know each other. As far as Tara could see, there were only two freshmen, and nobody in the entire group had ever done a real spell.

She went to the second meeting, hoping that something would change, but by the third, it was more out of habit than anything. It was a miracle when the red-haired girl finally brought up real magic.

A little under a year later, Tara stood in the magic shop, surrounded by friends (she had friends!) as her family walked away, and she knew: this was what she had been running away to.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry my writing is bad in this one... it's more narration than anything else, and i wish it were better narration


End file.
